This invention relates to apparatus suitable for the carriage and transport of relatively large objects such as cartons or pieces of furniture and also for carrying loose items such as varied purchases in a large self-service store.
For transporting large objects, it is desirable to have apparatus such as a trolley which facilitates the transport of objects which are large or heavy or both, such as household white goods. Such apparatus is usually only used rarely and it is preferable for it to be foldable so as to occupy a reduced space when not in use.
Another major problem is the carriage and transport of purchases in a large store. Currently, large self-service stores make large capacity caddies available to customers so that they can collect their loose purchases therein. When the customer passes the cash desk, the store often supplies plastic bags in which purchases can be placed as and when they are registered. The plastic bags are neither very strong nor very practical as the user must carry them from the caddy supplied by the store to his vehicle and then carry them from the boot of his vehicle to his home, and the distances can be quite long, depending on the available car parking. It would be desirable for users to have a transport apparatus for carrying their purchases without great effort from their vehicle to their home when the distance is long.
Moreover, the caddies supplied by the self-service stores may be taken outside the boundaries of the store and the stores have to renew a large part of their park of caddies each year; also, the caddies can cause damage to vehicles in the car park of the store when they are abandoned in unsuitable places.
A device to reduce theft of caddies which also enables the unused caddies to be fixed in specific places consists of hooking the caddies to a fixing system which is freed by a coin, for example a ten franc coin. Such a device is not effective to make a major reduction in theft of the caddies supplied by the store.